Your Ass Is Grass
by blue boats
Summary: Very few circumstances will force Zim and Dib to be allies, and they suppose their current situation calls for that: Zim is on a girls' soccer team with Gaz, Dib is a chaperone on a mysterious trip to the mountains, the forces of Hell want to use Gaz as a weapon, and there's not enough room for two invasions on one planet. ZADF, ZAGF.
1. Chapter 1

**i couldn't decide which original story i wanted to write for nanowrimo, so i chose instead to write a full invader zim fanfiction. odds are, it won't reach 50k words, but that's okay. i just wanted to write it anyway.**

**the events that take place are related to the third chapter of my other fic, "malfunction junction," which explains why zim is on the girls' soccer team, but you don't have to read it to understand what's going on. it's just backstory, and this chapter will briefly explain it anyway.**

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When Dib was in seventh grade, Zim had the hilarious misfortune of being drafted onto the girls' soccer team after his Irken uniform had led the coach to believe he was a girl. If not for the fact that Gaz had also been placed on the soccer team (with about as much enthusiasm as Zim), this wouldn't have been an issue for Dib and would have only served as a source for a good laugh.

And for a while that's exactly what it was. For five years Zim was stuck on the team, forced to wear a violet uniform with the team name "URCHINS" splashed across his back and attend every game despite never needing to actually play. The Urchins had a winning streak for those five years ever since Gaz joined the team; with every game she left the opposing team little more than a crater in the green inside of ten minutes. Gaz was never interested in running around kicking a ball for two hours. Professor Membrane had encouraged her to join the team as a proactive outlet for her aggression, and Dib supposed it _kind _of worked.

For five years, Dib's problems with Zim didn't have anything to do with Zim being an Urchin. That is, until the Tournament.

("The Tournament? What kind of tournament?"

"I don't know, just the Tournament. It's in the mountains.")

Which is how Dib found himself in the office at school, clutching Gaz's permission slip in his hands and arguing with the receptionist at the front desk.

"I'm eighteen!" he insisted for the third time. "I'm a legal adult! If it's about missing school, I've had perfect marks since kindergarten! I can make up classwork!"

The receptionist was tired. "You're eighteen."

"Yes."

"And your want to go on this soccer trip as a chaperone to your little sister…"

"Yes."

"…who's seventeen."

Dib faltered slightly. It sounded dumb when she put it like that. He shook himself of embarrassment and scowled deeply, leaning on the desk.

"Look, Zim has to go on this trip too," he explained earnestly. "The Urchins have never had to go on an overnight trip for a game, and this trip is going to last three days. I'm not letting my sister go on a mysterious trip to the mountains for three days with that alien when I'm not around to keep him from doing…_stuff!_"

"Stuff," repeated the receptionist.

"Stuff," said Dib grimly. "It's the middle of winter, it's not even our school's soccer season. It's already fishy."

"Fishy," repeated the receptionist.

"Super fishy," said Dib gravely.

The receptionist sighed. "Just inform your teachers of your absence and it'll be up to them whether or not you'll be allowed to make up missed classwork."

There came a sharp tapping on the glass window to the office from the hallway. Gaz was waiting for Dib. Dib left the office and smiled proudly at her, taking his place beside her and walking out the front doors, heading for the student parking lot.

"Well, I did it!" he said. "I got them to let me be your chaperone!"

"Ugh," Gaz groaned, disgusted. "I don't _want _you to be my chaperone."

"Come on, Gaz, you know I don't trust Zim for a second, even when I'm already around to keep an eye on him!"

Gaz sneered at him. "Then why don't you go as _his _chaperone?"

"Very funny," Dib frowned. "I know Zim has something to do with this weird Tournament the team is going to play. It's not even soccer season. And what's up with it being in the mountains? Mt. Sappho is a volcano, you know!"

They reached Dib's car and Gaz glared at him ferociously over the roof of it. "Nobody else on the team is bringing a chaperone, Dib, so I'm expecting you not to bug me or embarrass me. That means shutting up and keeping your weirdness with Zim quiet and minimal, or else I'll plunge you into a hell so abominable and agonizing you'll be begging to take Judas's place in the mouth of Dis."

They got into the car. Gaz pulled out her Game Slave 4 and immersed herself in it as Dib pulled haphazardly out of the parking lot and sped down the road for home. They went inside and filed up the stairs to their rooms in silence. The trip was tomorrow, and they were expected to be in the school parking lot at six in the morning to board the charter bus, so Dib hauled out his suitcase from the closet. It was dusty and smelled kind of bad, and when he jostled it a roach skittered out and a cluster of spiders toppled onto the floor and scattered. He wasn't sure why he had this thing. It was older than he was, and his family never went on trips, much less ones long enough to call for a suitcase.

Still, he shook the thing out to rid it of anymore pests before putting it on his bed and then turning to his computer to check the cameras he'd set up around Zim's house, as usual. The alien wasn't home yet; he still walked to and from school, while Dib had gotten a car two years ago and drove like a maniac. There were no signs of GIR getting up to anything either, so Dib turned away from his computer to start packing his suitcase. Let's see…laptop, camera…books, cyanide pills (just a precaution), pictures of Zim...extra underwear, three days worth of clothes, toiletries…

By the time he finished packing, Dib had to sit on his suitcase in order to force it shut. He'd worked up a sweat from the effort, and when he glanced at his computer screen, he saw Zim walking up the pathway to his evil house. Dib put on his headphones and strained to hear what Zim was saying as he entered his house. He needed to fix his laser microphone, it was hard to pick things up from this distance…

"…a monumental waste of my precious time, GIR!" Zim was saying. "Five years—_five!_—of my life, _wasted _on this stupid, stinking sport, and now I'm required to go on some _'field trip' _for three days?! To play in a tournament that the Gaz child will have wrapped up in the blink of an eye?! It's _infuriating_, I _hate _this sport!"

Huh, so maybe Zim wasn't behind the mysterious Tournament. Still, Dib fully intended to tag along with Gaz. Just because Zim wasn't up to something having to do with the trip, that didn't mean he wasn't up to anything at all. Dib sat back in his chair and settled in as usual to obsessively watch Zim and do his homework. He didn't have school tomorrow, but he didn't want to put it off until the last minute; he didn't let his grades slip when Zim first arrived to Earth and he wasn't going to let them slip now. He went downstairs a few hours later to get something for dinner and found Gaz at the kitchen table with their father.

"Have you packed yet?" he asked his sister, who peered at him with one eye and slurped a string of spaghetti.

"Yeah."

"Gaz was telling me that you've secured yourself a position as her chaperone on her trip," Professor Membrane said. "It's good to know you're so concerned about her well-being, son!"

"Yeah. Zim's going, and I want to make sure he doesn't do anything horrible. The Tournament's next to a volcano, you know."

"Of course it is."

"I was also telling him that the game is going to be on TV," Gaz said warningly to Dib, "so you better remember what I said about bugging and/or embarrassing me."

"Be nice, honey," Membrane chided mildly. "And of course I will tune in on your game! I know I haven't been able to make it to all of the games you've won, but I will definitely be able to see this one at the labs! I trust that you'll do your best not to embarrass your sister, son."

"I won't, sheesh!" With an indignant huff, Dib turned away and set about making himself a sandwich. He left the kitchen to plant himself in front of the television just in time for the _Mysterious Mysteries _theme.

Despite going two consecutive sleepless nights already and telling himself he'd turn in for the night at ten o' clock, Dib found himself reporting to Agent Darkbooty three times and absorbing himself in a recent report of a Spring-heeled Jack from Agent Tunaghost, which led to another session of recreational Bigfoot research, which, in turn, reminded him to read up on the Yeti some more, considering where the Tournament was to be held. He was dozing at his desk with his chin propped up in one hand at 5:30 when Gaz came in, startling him.

"Take a shower," she said tersely, "we gotta be at the school in a half hour."

Cursing under his breath for forgetting to go to sleep _again_, Dib shuffled into the bathroom and showered quickly, then padded downstairs to get breakfast. He didn't have the energy to be annoyed with Gaz when he saw she'd eaten the last of the cereal, so he ate a slice of toast at the breakfast table in silence. When 5:45 ticked around, they dragged their suitcases downstairs and loaded them into the car. At 5:48, Dib screeched to a halt in the school parking lot.

The parking lot was dimly lit by the sickly yellow lights inside the charter bus, but the Urchins were not yet allowed to board. The girls of the soccer team stood shivering in the December chill in two lines before the two soccer coaches heading the trip, Coaches Praline and D'Olive.

"_Gaz!_" Coach D'Olive roared across the parking lot upon sighting them. "Fall in! You too, Zim!"

Gaz got in line, and Dib looked around for Zim. Zim was just arriving, looking far from happy. When he spotted Dib, he bared his teeth.

"Dib!" he snarled. "What are _you _doing here?"

"Chaperoning," Dib said easily.

"_Chaperoning?_" He looked horrified. "You mean to say you're coming on the trip too?!"

"Yup!" said Dib smugly. "You didn't think you'd get three whole days unsupervised alien treachery, did you?"

"I thought at the very least I'd get three whole days of no giant-headed, stupid-haired, ugly-faced _Dib _bothering me at every turn," Zim said unhappily. "How could this wretched trip have gotten worse before it's even _begun!?_"

"Zim!" Coach D'Olive hollered. "I said fall in! Buddies are being assigned!"

Zim glared balefully at Dib before getting into the second line next to Gaz. Dib joined her as she reached the front of the line.

"Do you have a chaperone with you?" Coach Praline asked, looking at his clipboard.

"Unfortunately."

"Hmm." Praline's eyes lazily went up and down Dib's person before returning to his clipboard. "Your buddy will be Zim for the next three days. You and your chaperone will travel in a group of three with her for the duration of the trip for safety."

"Whatever." Gaz walked away. Dib didn't bother correcting the coach on Zim's gender; if he hadn't figured it out in five years, it's likely he never would.

Dib went to stand next to the bus, warming himself by the exhaust pipe until it was time to board. He drew himself up to his full height as Zim approached him thunderously; they had grown, both of them, since Zim's arrival on Earth, with Dib standing at a respectable height of 6'1" while Zim had barely reached 5'3". Something about Irken gravity being heavier or something.

"Listen carefully, _Dib_," Zim said, poking Dib in the chest. "I don't understand the point of this 'buddy system' the soccer humans have enacted, but I do understand that I need to make something _very clear._" He poked him again and Dib swatted at him. "You are your _sister's _chaperone, not mine! I've been an adult since before your father was even a _cell._ Gaz is your only charge! You will have absolutely no authority over _ZIM!_"

Dib blinked slowly at the little alien's glowering face, then reached up casually and flicked him where his nose would have been if he had one. Zim screeched.

"All aboard!" the bus driver called from the bus, and blasted the horn like a train conductor.

Dib, Gaz, and Zim were the first to board. Dib followed Gaz to the back of the bus, where she took the window seat, and he sat beside her. Zim flopped into the seat next to Dib and immediately pulled up a computer screen from his watch.

"What are you doing?" Dib asked suspiciously. Zim scoffed.

"None of your business, stink boy," he said snidely, but proceeded to explain, "I sent out a few mods to the location where the Tournament is to be held to set up a second underground base in the mountains. A good invader always has more than one base."

"You're setting up a second base just for a three day trip?" Talk about a workaholic. Years ago, Dib would have been appalled at the thought—now, it was just kind of annoying. Most of Zim's antics these days were just annoying, really.

"If you thought I'd treat this pointless soccer trip as a vacation from my work, you thought wrong."

Dib crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat, unbothered. "Good luck with your evil, Zim. You won't get away with a single thing."

The bus rumbled underneath them, and at last, it began to move. They pulled out of the parking lot and set off down the road. The Tournament at Mt. Sappho awaited them.


	2. Chapter 2

**well, nanowrimo didn't happen! oh well. better late than never when it comes to updating, though.**

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About twenty miles southeast of Mt. Sappho was the cleverly named town of Sapphoville, which hosted the Sapphoville Arena, a library, an arcade, a few hotels and sports bars, and not much else. Sapphoville was hemmed in on all sides by reasonably-sized massifs, and the road winding into the town between mountains grew bumpier as it stretched further from the highway. Dib had nodded off into a light nap about three hours into the bus drive, and was jolted rudely awake by a sharp bump as the bus bounced along the pothole-riddled road. It was around noon and the sky was a pearly, wintry gray that made Dib squint and want to go back to sleep. However, he noticed with some embarrassment that he had fallen asleep on Zim's shoulder (who, to his credit, either hadn't noticed or hadn't cared), so he sat up straight and rubbed his eyes. His nap had done the opposite of rejuvenating him.

"We're here?" he asked Gaz, peering out the bus window just as it turned into the parking lot of a hotel.

"_FINALLY!_" Zim cried, leaping to his feet and clutching the back of the seat in front of him.

"Zim, sit down!" Coach D'Olive barked from the front of the bus. "Nobody exits the bus until rooms are assigned!"

Zim planted his butt back in his seat and crossed his arms, sulking. Dib watched as he pulled up his computer screen again; it was a view from his spaceship passing over a city Dib couldn't recognize from the angle. It was only when he heard the rumble of an engine overhead and looked out the window to see the spaceship slowly coming to dock on the roof of the hotel that Dib realized what he was doing.

"You built a second base _and _brought your spaceship?" Gaz said, unimpressed.

"Of course I did! Why wouldn't I?"

"You didn't even disguise it," Dib pointed out. "Are you even _trying _anymore?"

Zim looked affronted. "_BE QUIET!_"

They sat there on the bus for nearly an hour—far longer than Dib felt was remotely necessary—as the coaches divvied up the girls with their buddies, assigning them their hotel rooms. Dib came close to dozing off again a few times, but was kept awake by an itching thought regarding this room assignment thing he couldn't quite find the energy to focus on…

"Gaz and Zim, your room number is 122," came Coach Praline's voice. Ah, that was the problem! Dib jerked to full alertness, alarmed.

"Hey, wait! No!" he said sharply.

"What?"

"Isn't there some sort of rule against that?!" Dib protested angrily. "Boys and girls aren't allowed to room together!"

Coach Praline stared at him for a long moment, before saying carefully, "This is a girls' soccer team, young man."

"Yes! It is! And you put a guy on it _five years ago!_"

"_Dib_," Gaz growled, while Coach Praline looked at Zim. Zim sat with his hands folded politely in his lap, his legs swinging, staring innocently up at him.

"Room 122," Coach Praline said after a confused pause, apparently choosing not to worry too much about the whole thing. He handed the three of them their room keys. "You kids can work out the sleeping arrangements yourselves."

Dib seethed for a moment, overwhelmed with anger that was more instinctive than logical, then snatched his key from Praline with a grumble of "oh, whatever." He stuffed his key card into his wallet and pocketed it, then held a warning finger in Zim's face.

"I don't know what you're so upset about," Zim said, narrowing his eyes at him. "I have no intentions of being in this hotel room with you or little Gaz much at all."

"Great," Dib said coldly. "Let's keep it that way."

Gaz's face was pink and livid as she followed Dib following Zim down the aisle of the bus. "_What, _exactly, did you think was going to _happen?_"

Dib sensed a dangerously loaded question. "Nothing! I just want to look out for you is all."

"I will murder you," she threatened. Dib made a note to watch his back for the next few hours while Gaz had this on her mind.

They got off the bus. Zim marched into the hotel promptly while Dib and Gaz got in line with her teammates to retrieve their suitcases. Dib scanned the room numbers for room 122 on the ground floor, although they could have easily followed the racket down the hall that Zim was making.

"Zim!" Dib snapped over the mechanical noise, shutting the door behind him and Gaz. "What are you doing _now?_"

Across the room, Zim's head poked out of the bathroom.

"Setting up a transit system to my second base in the toilet!" he explained proudly. "Wanna see?"

Gaz crossed the room, and Zim stood aside to let her into the bathroom, fists planted happily on his hips. There was a shrill squeal of metal being torn apart, and Zim's partially-constructed transit system flew out of the bathroom and made a ding in the wall.

"Hey!" Zim yelped.

"Put your stupid alien elevator somewhere else," Gaz instructed. "We have to actually _use _that toilet."

"I don't!" Zim protested.

"Well, _I'm _a human who _pees_," Gaz snarled, and slammed the bathroom door in his face. Zim looked at Dib as if expecting him to reason with Gaz, but Dib simply tossed his suitcase on one of the two queen-sized beds that Gaz hadn't already claimed.

"This is my bed," Dib said firmly. He pointed at the other one. "That's Gaz's bed. You don't get a bed. Neither of us is going to sleep with you."

"Stupid, smelly Dib," Zim cackled unpleasantly. "Unlike you revolting, fragile little humans, Irkens don't need sleep!" He picked up the beginnings of the transit system and went to the empty wastebasket next to the television cabinet. He nudged it aside and rammed the machinery into the carpeted floor. With a whirring noise, it started to drill down. Zim kicked the bottom of the wastebasket out and positioned it over where he had drilled. He looked very happy with his work.

"Do you just not care that I can see everything you're doing?" Dib asked. He glanced at his suitcase and wished he hadn't packed his camera at the bottom.

"Eh?" Zim barely spared him a glance, distracted as he looked around their room, waiting for his transit system to finish installing itself. Dib didn't know how far away the new base was. "Oh, yes, of course. Uh, cover your eyes."

Dib sprawled face down on the bed. Zim was stupid. He sat up when he heard Gaz come out of the bathroom and turn on the TV.

"Oh, Gaz, look for the channel that _Mys—_"

"No." She turned the channel to _When Animals Attack! _The three of them stared at the screen as a polar bear gnawed on a tourist's leg, Gaz with contentment, Zim with mild curiosity, and Dib with some distaste. After a moment, Gaz said, "Your elevator thing's done."

"Hm?" Zim looked down at the wastebasket. "Oh, look at that!" He stepped inside it, his boots crinkling in the plastic lining. "Farewell, you _fools! _We'll meet again—when's the thingy tomorrow?"

"Ten."

"Farewell, you _fools!_" Zim roared again. "We'll meet again tomorrow at _ten o' clock!_" He laughed madly as he disappeared into the floor, whisked away to his stupid new base.

Dib heaved a sigh and turned his attention back to the TV, only for Gaz to say, "Don't you have a Yeti or something to chase? It's like…definite Yeti weather up on the mountain."

"Yeah, okay." Dib frowned at the unspoken "go away," but it wasn't every day that Gaz bothered to spare his feelings, so he stood up to leave. There wasn't much for him to do in here anyway, now that everybody seemed to have settled in. He tapped his watch. "But call me if Zim comes back and starts doing anything suspicious."

Gaz grunted, and Dib left the room. He didn't really want to go outside, but the entire first floor of the hotel reeked of chlorine from the indoor swimming pool, so he buttoned up his coat for the first time in a long time and made his way out of the lobby.

It was snowing a little outside and the wintry breeze stung Dib's cheeks. He looked up at Mt. Sappho towering over Sapphoville; the volcano was dormant, he'd read, and had been for several centuries, but something seemed…_suspicious _about it. Almost like it was buzzing, like a sputtering engine deep within the earth's crust that Dib could only just barely detect—

"_WHEEEEEEEE!_" Never mind. It _was _a sputtering engine, GIR's poorly regulated jets, screaming through the air in the distance, weaving a dangerous spiral in the sky as he came closer. Dib ducked and threw his arms protectively over his head as GIR swooped low and collided hard with the brick wall of the hotel.

"Hi, GIR," Dib said glumly. The volcano was still suspicious, though.

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**I Be Sporks**: thanks man! sorry for such a long wait or the update. i hope the rest of the story holds up to your standards! and protective older brother dib will always be a favorite of mine (but i don't think the same can be said for gaz!) so you can bet your ass there will be plenty of over-protective dib throughout this stupid adventure!

**Miss reader**: thanks, that means a lot! i'm really looking forward to plowing ahead with this story, despite how long it took to get this chapter up. writer's block can be a pain in the ass, and nothing interesting happened save for some character establishing. but the rest of the story i'm definitely eager to move on with. and yeah, ha, i've never cared much about how dib and zim's wardrobes would change over the years, since they probably wouldn't change much at all so why bother mentioning it? and zim's always gonna be our favorite little midget. thanks again for reading, i hope to update soon!

**invadakak13**: that was explained in literally the first sentence.


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